


Chance isn't a Choice

by studella



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: College, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 12:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25849720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/studella/pseuds/studella
Summary: Ronan finally gets a reading done by Adam.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19
Collections: TRC Fic Drabbles With Friends!





	Chance isn't a Choice

“Come on, man. Just pull a card.” 

They were all sitting on the floor at Monmouth, avoiding the spring heat coming in from the windows. Light bounced off Ronan’s head when he moved, trying to push Adam’s hand towards Blue. She laughed and pushed it back towards Ronan. 

“You’re already going to hell. Just choose one!” 

“Jane! No one is going to hell.”

“I might send him there if he doesn’t pick.” Blue held Adam’s wrist in front of Ronans chest, the cards fanned down. 

Ronan turned his head and glared. Adam caught a glimpse of something in Ronan’s eyes and he raised an eyebrow. He saw no way Ronan was going to get out of this one until he felt his hand jerked up. 

Chainsaw, who had been sitting on Ronan’s shoulder this whole time, pulled the cards out of his hand until she ended up with one in her mouth. Adam dropped the rest of the deck and pulled it out of her beak before she could do any serious damage. 

“Oh God, I should have known.” She leaned over trying to read the card. “What is it?”

“Justice.” Adam showed her the card, an unbalanced scale leaning down towards a feather. The other one held a chalice with a chain. He turned it at different angles, revealing the sword in the background that glinted when it hit the light. 

“What does that mean?” Gansey, finally interested, had gotten up from the floor, on the other side of Ronan.

“It means,” Blue said, taking the card and investigating it, “that he either did something incredibly distasteful or incredibly sweet. I’m betting distasteful.” 

“Oh no. Ronan. Do we have to bury another dead body?” Gansey had turned his face into serious mockery at this point. “Or do we need to call Cheng for a favor?” Ronan lunged at a Gansey while the rest of them busted up laughing. 

Gansey had gone to grab sodas from the fridge and Adam was picking up all the leftover cards. 

“So what did you REALLY do?” Adam snickered as he put the deck behind him on Gansey’s mattress. Blue was not going to let it go until Ronan confessed. 

“What do you mean what I did? Chainsaw chose the card! Go ask her.” At this, Chainsaw bit Ronan’s ear and took off. 

“She’s a bird. And you created her so she probably knows all your secrets.”

Adam was only half watching Ronan and Blue glare at each other. Aglionby’s scholarship had only paid for one of his college applications. Adam had saved enough money to pay for 2 more. He had been sitting at the Barns sorting through all the schools he wanted to attend. Ronan had been eyeing him like a hawk, muscles tense and impossibly getting tenser whenever Adam added a west coast school to the maybe list. 

Adam had already used Aglionby’s free pass on Harvard. The question was, if he didn’t get in, he needed what Blue had grudgingly called a “safe” school. Basically, a state university. But as Adam viewed the list of state universities, he couldn’t bring himself to not be better. He could hear his father’s voice trying to itch his way into his brain. In frustration, he chose two schools and decided that later he would find some more that had fee waivers. 

That had been months ago, and it was that time for colleges to begin sending out admission letters. On a Monday afternoon when Adam had returned with Ronan to St. Agnes, he found a letter waiting for him. It was fat, which teachers and counselors always claimed was a good sight and it had bright maroon S on it. Stanford. 

He hadn’t applied to Stanford. It was too far and had an even lower acceptance rate than Harvard. He stood outside looking at it when Ronan came up behind him. Adam knew Ronan well enough that he could feel the “oh, shit” radiating from him. Ronan had done this, knowing that Adam would be furious. It also meant, that Ronan had to log into his email and check all his accounts to make sure he hadn’t already applied. 

It wasn’t a difficult task, considering Adam didn’t keep secrets or even passwords from Ronan. Ronan could have easily just dreamed something that got into everything he needed. The difficult task was Adam leaving. 

Ronan watched Adam, waiting. Time passed between the two of them, itching their nerves, waiting for the other to start a fight. Finally, Adam said, “How many more?”

The Ronan that Gansey had grown up with and Adam had slowly begun to learn, raised his eyebrows and let himself into St. Agnes. 

If Adam hadn’t known a Ronan that dreamed him romantic mixtapes and hand lotion or a Ronan that dreamt baby brothers and spent his free time trying to wake up comatose cows, he wouldn’t have understood that Ronan chose Stanford because he was giving Adam a choice. If it was Gansey, he would have paid for every single college on the list, stating that Adam needed every chance he could get which would give him many choices to choose from. Between chance and choice, Adam would always choose choice.


End file.
